In what appears at first to be a late 80’s/early 90’s entry in the long running Molester Train series (3 previous entries of which were brought over here by Pink Eiga as Groper Train: Wedding Capriccio, Groper Train: Search for the Black Pearl and Sexy Time Trip Ninjas), sexy “Michelle” (Shoko Kudo) enjoys a ride on the morning bullet train where she gets felt up by an unseen fellow passenger. A scream breaks out, and she discovers a businessman in horrible underwear holding an obvious hot dog in hand (in the ridiculous language of the film, clearly meant to represent his private parts), and a girl wiping come from her mouth – that’s right, she’s a serial blowjobber.

Kudo attempts to give chase but fails, resulting in an upbraiding from her still attractive older boss “Susan” (Satomi Shinozaki) for not only failing in her duty as an undercover vice squad policewoman and “professional pervert investigator”, but getting molested herself in the process. Yep, that’s the kind of film this is.

“You said all the women exposed to the red light became horny.”

Marked by a soundtrack filled with silly, cheery music and a bemusedly good natured view towards sex (whether technically consensual or no), it comes across as nothing less than a live action version of the Burn Up anime series, and Burn Up W in particular. As an anime fan hailing from the very earliest days of ADV, this was quite a welcome discovery, as were the leads’ willingness to give all for their art, so to speak.

Motosugu Watanabe directs with something of a soft focus filter, which serves to both ground the film in the time period it appears to arise from (though astonishingly, it actually hails from a full decade later, in 1998) and to further flatter the mature but still absolutely stunning charms of Shinozaki, who gets a brief but welcome scene with her detective boyfriend (Yukijiro Hotaru).

A new member arrives, “Heather” (Yumika Hayashi), a glasses bedecked cutie who cements the anime feel by playing the young, unqualified but earnest klutz role to the hilt. Within her first minute of screentime, she’s already tripped over the plug, presumably losing hours of effort the team just spent creating a database of sex offenders, and announced her prior credentials as her police division’s cleaning woman…

“Dr. Smith studies brain waves…the beam must affect people’s brains.”

The ostensible plot of the whole affair revolves around a red light (ahem) ‘sex ray’ created by some kook at the “Brain Wave Institute”, which looks more like a child’s toy than you’d ever possibly imagine (literally, it’s a Playskool version of a water gun, complete with a rubber brain under a bubble). Use of this sub-Rube Goldberg contraption results in random ladies getting extremely horny.

Hayashi gets hit by the beam and grabs the first guy she sees, who happens to be the chief’s boyfriend Hotaru, and drags him to the nearest public toilet for a quickie. Not silly enough for you? Try this one on for size: our crack team’s idea of a stakeout is cutting two eyeholes in a newspaper and peering through them obtrusively at passerby at the foot of the nearest public stairwell. Is it as “sexy” as the title claims? Damn straight. Hell, even the lesbo scene is kinda hot (and trust me, that particular kink is not my scene).

“if we go out naked, we’ll be arrested for indecent combat!”

After a few rounds of “red light sex ray madness”, Kudo is kidnapped to be a sex slave guinea pig, and Hayashi infiltrates the “Brain Wave Institute” dressed like a sailor suited high schooler (“you won’t be questioned if you pretend to be a curious girl!”) to rescue her. Sure enough, nobody stops them from just walking right out of the place (of course, there’s amost nobody working there to start with), and we get yet another fetish costume change, into thigh-high bedecked, leather hot pants (or skirt) sporting policewomen. Things get all ’70s tokusatsu for a few minutes (think Ultraman with an adult twist), they reflect the sex ray back on the mad scientist (who pulls out a black dildo meant to represent his naughty bits and starts wanking, and they take the opportunity to throw a special set of handcuffs right onto it, Sukeban Deka style (!).

There’s a silly rooftop fight with a guy wearing a colander (supposedly a mind control device), Shinozaki and detective Hotaru show up, and the one boring couple in the film (the train BJ girl and the guy with the pot on his head) get it on while the team has a budget conscious evening of drinks in the same damn room they’ve been in for half the movie.

It turns out the detective was the molester from the beginning of the film, we get one last gag with the red light beam, and everybody gets naked. Freeze frame on the beam getting shot at the audience, presumably inciting a massive wave of pink theater orgies across Japan (!) Roll credits, which are quite watchable (the entire cast dances and clowns around, holding up cue cards with their names, ala Bob Dylan in “Subterranean homesick blues”).

With Kudo, Shinozaki and Hayashi being quite the lookers whether clothed or not, the film is brimming with that sort of late 80’s feel of fellow (and more directly) anime and manga based live action fare as Pink Eiga’s own Sexy Battle Girls (fittingly, as this was also a Watanabe production) or S&M Hunter. Even the music says “Sailor Moon“…

Pretty much all of the girls on the team are REALLY cute (as in each one could carry a film all by their lonesome-level cute): “Heather” (Hayashi) with her innocent little girl tones and pout, glasses and sexy bangs, “Michelle” (Kudo), tall and throaty voiced, with a stunning feline Noh mask of a face, full breasted and looking great in all those short skirts, and smoky-toned “Susan” (Shinozaki), who may be getting on, but still looks the best of all of them naked, and that’s probably all most guys reading this will need to know.

While the jokes aren’t particularly hilarious, the overall conceit is patently absurd, and you’d have to be pretty damn uptight to walk away from this one without a big smile on your face. This is definitely the sort of film I hope Pink Eiga eventually ports over to DVD – inconsequential, perhaps. Mindless, sure. But good natured, sexy and loads of fun – the sort of film I’d love to have on my shelf to pull out whenever I need some cheering up.

While I’m grateful for all 16 of Pink Eiga’s DVD releases, this is definitely one of those I wish would have been at the top of the list (and thus already out in that format). Mourning Wifewas great, and had its own mature stunner in Mayuko Sasaki, but Sexy SWAT Team is more where my head’s at these days.

These are the sort of films it actually hurts to view via streaming, because they’re the kind I would be most inclined to revisit time and time again. Life is a bitch…we could all use a little light hearted escapism to lift our spirits now and again. Sexy S.W.A.T. Team comes highly recommended to fans of Burn Up, Sexy Battle Girls or similar light hearted Japanese adult fare of the era.